Politics, PCSO & Zubiri: The Philippine Disease

YESTERDAY, TODAY & TOMORROW
Linggoy Alcuaz
7/18-24/2011



Walang pagbabago! Ganoon pa rin! Walang patutunguan!

When I was five years old, my mother, Rosa Zaragosa Araneta Alcuaz, brought me to Nacionalista and Landsdale presidential candidate, Ramon Magsaysay, in his Sta. Mesa home. He sat me on his lap and put on a campaign pin on my shirt.

I believed in him as the savior of the Philippines.

I believed the CIA propaganda.

I believed that President Elpidio Syquia Quirino from Vigan, Ilocos Sur was the Filipino devil-incarnate. He was guilty of a trilogy of sins. He had a Golden Urinola under his bed. The bed was big and expensive while he was already a widower. The third and last sin had something to do with the Tambobong Estate.

In late March 1957, when the news broke that the presidential plane, Mt. Pinatubo, had crashed soon after taking off from Cebu’s Lapu-Lapu Airport, that moment was forever engraved in my memory.

I was in the same part of our dining room where I usually type both my English and Pilipino columns. It was early evening. We did not have a TV yet. We got the news from a table top AM/FM radio.

In a flash, our hopes were extinguished.

Do Gooders!
The reformist Magsaysay boys split from the Nacionalista Party and organized their own party.

And so, for the next decade, my mother’s family supported the PPP (1957 & 1965), Grand Alliance (1959), and the United Opposition Party (1961). We lost three of the four elections. We only won in 1961 because we were coalesced with 1957-1961 Vice President Diosdado Macapagal.

However, our unity with him did not last long. He was suspected and accused of graft and corruption. However, he lost his hidden wealth when his Secretary of Finance and suspected moneybags, Feny Hechanova, died from gas suffocation in Europe.

In 1965, then Senate President Ferdinand Edralin Marcos jumped from the Liberal Party to the Nacionalista Party. He beat the native aspirants as well as another import, 1961-1965 Vice President Emmanuel Pelaez, in the party convention.

Marcos won the November 1965 elections partly because of the backlash to Macapagal caused by the suppression of the movie version of FM’s biography, “For Every Tear a Victory!”

Full-time Activist
In November 1965, when I assumed command of the Ateneo de Manila High School Pre-Military Training Corps of Cadets, I quoted Marcos’s favorite slogan, ”This Nation can be Great Again”.

When Marcos and Vice President Fernando Lopez were re-elected and defeated Serging Osmeňa, Jr. and Genaro Magsaysay in November 1969, I dropped out of my last semester in college in order to become a full-time activist.

I had been recruited in my first year by Jesuit Fr. Jose Blanco and Ateneo History Professor Rolando Quintos to be a cadre in the moderate, as opposed to radical, wing of student and youth activism.

We were very successful in our politicalizing, organizing, mobilizing, and protesting.

Martial Law
When Marcos, Enrile, et al. implemented Proclamation 1081 declaring Martial Law, on a Friday evening, September 1972, we were meeting overnight. We were planning our strategy for the November 1973 national elections.

A pragmatic group among the reformists was pushing to coalesce again with the Liberal Party.

This time around, we were negotiating with LP President and Senator Gerardo Roxas.

With just one stroke of the pen, Marcos dashed all our dreams, hopes and visions for our country and people.

He stole thirteen and a half years from all those who were into activism and politics.

Hope and Expectations
There were occasions that gave us back our faith, our hopes, and our love of country and people.

There was the night of April 6, 1978.

On the eve of the 1978 region-wide Interim Batasan Pambansa elections, a whisper and word-of-mouth campaign brought the greater part of Metro Manila’s residents out in the streets to show their real feelings about the Marcos regime by making noise.

What was planned to be a few minutes of defiance turned into an overnight overflow of suppressed emotions.

Then again, there were the four nights and three days of EDSA Uno (February 22-25, 1986).

For those who hate Trapos and traditional campaigns and elections, the May 1992 elections gave two options to hope and work for victory.

One was Lakas’ FVR, who won. The other was PRP’s MDS (Miriam Defensor Santiago), who believed she won but was cheated out of her victory.

In 1998, the masses had their chance to hope and win a short-lived victory.

A Sorry History
Then, depending on which side you were, there was EDSA Dos (January 16-20) or Tres (April 25-May 1).

In 2004, the masses again dared to aspire, expect and hope in a FPJ.

However, GMA grabbed that hope from the masses a second time, a second time around in 2004.

In 2001, she tried to plant hope among the elite.

All of these turned sour, all these past hopes were dashed in one way or other.

Then, on August 1, 2009, Fate or God Himself set us up both for the biggest expectation and disappointment of our lives – Noynoy/P-Noy.

What is it in Philippine politics that condemns us to a never-ending cycle of false hope and real despair?

It is the Philippine disease.

Today, we see variations of it.

One is the sorry history of the PCSO.

The other is the electoral protest of Koko Pimentel against Juan Miguel Zubiri before the Senate Electoral Tribunal.

Bad Spending Habits Die Hard!
The PCSO is perceived by both the rich and the poor as one big milking cow.

Its charter mandates fixed percentages of the income to go to prizes (55 %), charity (30 %), and administrative and operational expenses (15 %).

However, both the PCSO Board and its management have been lax in preserving the 30 % share for charity.

When I was appointed as a director in March 2001, Admin & Operations had already borrowed a billion from Charity. By the time I exposed this in January 2003, the deficit had doubled.

Eight years later, Bayan Party List Rep. Neri Colmenares exposed this in a privilege speech as having reached P6.9 billion.

Oh! If only they listened to me then.

Another recurring controversy is the monstrous advertising budget of the PCSO.

When I was a director from March 2001 to January 2004, it ranged from P300 to P350 million. In 2006, it was almost a billion pesos.

Been There, Heard That
After the Robert Rivero controversy in 2001, GMA publicly instructed us to economize and reduce the advertising budget.

Instead, we managed to increase it.

In October 2001, we were investigated by the Senate Committee on Constitutional Reform and Revision of Laws chaired by Senator Edgardo Angara.

The Majority/Administration side tried to prevent the hearing. The Minority/Opposition pushed through and nine Minority Senators attended. Nothing came out of it.

These last two weeks, the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee has held four hearings on several aspects, anomalies, charges and controversies.

I have been religiously attending them and will attend today’s (Monday, July 18) fifth hearing.

At the end of each day, I have an uneasy feeling of “been there, heard that”.

Could this be another whitewash?

Not Once but Twice
Certainly, the thing that really takes the cake is the Koko Pimentel vs. Migs Zubiri electoral protest before the Senate Electoral Tribunal (SET).

Koko has been cheated not once but twice.

First of all, Koko was leading Zubiri by about 110,000 votes in the COMELEC’s national canvass.

Then, the Maguindanao votes came in. Zubiri had 195,823 against Koko’s 67,111. The difference of 128,712 votes made Zubiri the 12th and Koko the 13th in the Senatorial seats.

Koko’s protest was focused on Maguindanao and a few more mainly Muslim areas. Based on the SET’s normal procedures, Koko should already be sitting as the last and twelfth senator.

However, Zubiri employed delaying tactics that can take until 2013 to resolve.

Claiming massive fraud, he filed a counter protest covering many precincts in Metro Manila and neighboring provinces.

However, the SET’s procedures are designed so that a counter-protest based on imaginary fraud will not be allowed.

The protested as well as the counter-protested precincts are divided into the first 25 % and the subsequent 75 %. Each side chooses the 25 % that will give it the best advantage. Based on the revision of the ballots in the first 25 %, the SET will decide whether to proceed with the balance of 75 %.

Starting with protestant Koko’s 25 %, the SET found reason to continue with his 75 %. These, together with Migs’ first 25 %, were already finished before the May 10, 2010 elections.

Based on the minimal effects of Zubiri’s first 25 %, the SET should have declared Koko the winner.

This was where Koko was cheated a second time.

The SET by a vote of 9 – 3, allowed the opening and revision of the balance of 75 % of the counter protested precincts. Thus, Koko is condemned to wait it out till beyond the 2013 elections. Only in the Philippines!